National Geographic Soc. v. District Unemp. Comp. Bd., 23078

• Decision Date: 08 December 1970
• Docket Number: 23151-23153.,23079,No. 23078,23078
• Citation: 141 US App. DC 313,438 F.2d 154
• Parties: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD, Lucy Arlene Thomas. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD, Laura H. Dorsey. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

141 US App. DC 313, 438 F.2d 154 (1970)

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD, Lucy Arlene Thomas.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD, Laura H. Dorsey.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Appellant, v. DISTRICT UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BOARD et al.

Nos. 23078, 23079, 23151-23153.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued June 18, 1970.

Decided December 8, 1970.

Mr. Arthur B. Hanson, Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. William J. Butler, Jr., and Ralph N. Albright, Jr., Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. George A. Ross, Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. F. G. Gordon, Jr., and Russell L. Carter, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellee District Unemployment Compensation Board.

Mr. Edward E. Schwab, Washington, D. C., entered an appearance for appellee, Dorsey, in No. 23079.

Before McGOWAN and TAMM, Circuit Judges, and NICHOLS^*, Judge, United States Court of Claims.

TAMM, Circuit Judge:

These consolidated cases represent appeals by the National Geographic Society (hereinafter "National Geographic" or "the Society") from decisions by the District of Columbia Unemployment Compensation Board (hereinafter "the Board") granting five of the Society's former employees unemployment compensation benefits.

On September 20, 1968 the Society moved a large portion of its District of Columbia operations from Third and R Streets, N.W. to a new location approximately five miles west of Rockville, Maryland and approximately 19 miles from downtown Washington. To aid employees residing in the District in reaching their new place of employment, the Society chartered several D.C. Transit buses to operate on certain routes within the District. Employees who availed themselves of the chartered bus service were charged $12.50 per month.

The five individuals involved here worked at the Society's Third and R Street location but refused to transfer to Maryland for reasons relating to the increased distance and time involved in reaching work. After resigning their jobs, they filed claims for unemployment compensation benefits with the Board pursuant to the District of Columbia Unemployment Compensation Act. In each case an initial determination was made that the claimant had established good cause for leaving his employment with the Society and was otherwise eligible for unemployment compensation. The Society appealed these rulings to Appeals Examiners who, after hearing testimony and oral argument, affirmed the initial determinations, setting forth the bases for their decisions in written opinions. National Geographic then appealed to the full Board, which issued short resolutions upholding the Examiners' decisions.

Having exhausted its administrative remedies, the Society appealed the Board's decisions to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In each case the District Court granted the Board's motion for summary judgment. It is from these decisions that these appeals are taken.

After careful consideration of the issues presented, we hold that the District Court erred in upholding the Board's decisions.

I.

The District of Columbia Unemployment Compensation Act and regulations adopted pursuant to that Act establish the guidelines for determining whether these claimants are eligible for benefits and also establish the procedures to be followed in determining eligibility.

Section 10(a) of the Act provides:

An individual who has left his most recent work voluntarily without good cause, as determined by the Board under regulations prescribed by it, shall not be eligible for benefits for a period of at least four weeks.

D.C.Code § 46-310(a) (1967). Pursuant to this legislative mandate, the Board adopted Employees-Regulation III A (1962), which defines "good cause" to be "what * * * the reasonable and prudent individual in the labor market would do in like circumstances." According to this regulation, the claimant has the burden of proving "good cause."

Another section of the D.C. Unemployment Compensation Act states that an individual otherwise eligible for benefits is disqualified for a certain period if he "fails, without good cause as determined by the Board under regulations prescribed by it, * * * to accept any suitable work when offered to him * * *." D.C.Code § 46-310(c) (1967). Since in this context leaving work and refusing to accept new work are essentially two sides of the same coin, we feel the Board's regulation defining "good cause" as this term is used in section 10(c) would also be helpful in determining what is "good cause" for leaving employment under section 10(a). This regulation, Employees-Regulation III C (1962), lists a number of factors which ordinarily would not constitute "good cause" for refusing to accept employment; one of these is a "difference in locality where transportation facilities are adequate and economical."

On appeal from an initial determination of eligibility under these statutes and regulations, the Appeals Examiner is to conduct a hearing (D.C.Code § 46-311(e) (1967)) and is to set forth in his decision "a brief summary of the evidence, the findings of fact and the conclusions drawn therefrom." Employees-Regulation IV E(4) (1962). If an appeal is taken to the Board as a whole, it is to consider the Examiner's decision and the record below in deciding whether to affirm or reverse.¹ Judicial review of the Board's decisions is authorized by section 12 of the Act. D.C.Code § 46-312 (1967).

II.

Having examined the relevant statutes and regulations, we move to a consideration of the individual cases. In reviewing the Board's decisions in these cases, we are forced to rely upon the findings and reasons given in the Appeals Examiners' opinions for the Board did not state why it affirmed their decisions. We assume that the Board incorporated by implication the grounds given in the Examiners' opinions, but we will have more to say about this assumption at the close of our opinion.

We consider first the case of Mrs. Thomas. Unlike the other claimants, Mrs. Thomas resigned from National Geographic long before the move took place, doing so because she was ill. When she recovered from her illness, National Geographic offered to re-employ her, but she refused to accept their offer because of the move the Society was contemplating. Thus the issue in her case was whether she had refused to accept an offer of suitable employment.

At the hearing before the Appeals Examiner the Society's senior personnel assistant testified that one of the chartered buses could pick Mrs. Thomas up approximately three blocks from her home at 7:03 a. m. (J.A. 25.) According to this personnel officer, she would arrive at the Society's new location at 7:45, fifteen minutes before she was due for work. (Id.) In her testimony Mrs. Thomas said that she would have to ride a city bus to the Society's pickup point (J.A. 24), but when she made this statement she was apparently mistaken as to the location of the nearest pickup point, thinking it was farther away than it actually was.²

In his written opinion the Appeals Examiner "concluded from the evidence that the work which was offered to claimant by her former employer was not suitable because of the distance to and from work." (J.A. 2.) He noted that the Society offered "bus service which could pick claimant up several blocks from her house" (Id.), but did not discuss this service any further.

We find the Examiner's discussion defective in that he made no finding as to the adequacy of the transportation available to Mrs. Thomas, but appeared to base his conclusion solely upon the distance involved. Distance is at best a rough indicia of the inconvenience and hardship which a traveler suffers, and the Board recognized this in formulating its regulations. Regulation III C indicates that a change in location is not in itself "good cause" for an employee to refuse to accept a job; he must also show that the transportation facilities between his house and the job site are not "adequate and economical." Of course, the distance between a person's home and a proposed place of employment may be so great that his refusal to accept the employment could be held justifiable without consideration of the available transportation. However, we do not feel 19 miles is such a distance. In this regard we note that in the other cases involving National Geographic's move to Rockville the Appeals Examiners felt compelled to consider at least to some extent the question of the adequacy of the Society's transportation. We note further that unemployment compensation boards and courts in other jurisdictions have held that a person was unjustified in refusing to accept work 15 to 20 miles from his home, indicating that this distance is certainly not prima facie unreasonable. Tunget v. State Employment Security Dept., 2 Wash.App. 574, 468 P.2d 734 (1970); Sciacca v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Review, 189 Pa.Super. 334, 150 A.2d 557 (1959); Szojka v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Review, 187 Pa.Super. 643, 146 A.2d 81 (1959). Thus, we feel the Appeals Examiner was required to make a finding as to the adequacy of the transportation available to Mrs. Thomas.

Findings of fact are not mere procedural niceties; they are essential to the effective review of administrative decisions. As we stated in Saginaw Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 68 App.D.C. 282, 287, 96 F.2d 554, 559, cert. denied, Gross v. Saginaw Broadcasting Co., 305 U.S. 613, 59 S.Ct. 72, 83 L.Ed. 391 (1938):

When a decision is accompanied by findings of fact, the reviewing court can decide whether the decision reached by the court or commission follows as a matter of law from the facts stated as its basis, and also whether the facts so stated have any substantial support in the evidence. In the absence of findings of fact the reviewing tribunal can determine

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